Be Excellent To Each Other

That RC-Fever site is brilliant/terrible.

I've just seen the Drift cars... There's an Initial D!

Well I've not looked at this thread for ages. THIS THREAD HAS ME VERY EXCITED. WANT!

That video was awesome markg.

Brings back mimooreys does this Morkjee
\

Hah.

New toy is going to be one of these things:


And the challenge I've set myself is to get it set up to go faster than 150mph in level flight

What type of engine does it have?

I broke the gearbox on my Riot at the weekend.
Every time I get it out to play with it I think "this is awesome, why don't I do this more often" and then twenty minutes later I remember why.

An electric motor, a brushless one although the exact spec will take some head scratching, it's pretty easy to melt them if you get it wrong.

How did you come to break the gearbox?

Dunno - I've not had it to bits yet. I looks like the bit that 'shifts' between first and second has worn out, as first gear just spins up. I may have been too heavy on the throttle on the high-grip grassy surface, but I suspect it was simply "its turn to break"

Re: Your plane - it's a prop? A 150mph prop?

Oh, and I smashed a front wishbone, but I'm always doing that. A replacement one is on its way - I should have them on some kind of one-click order system

Yeah, this is it with the mfr's setup in it but I want more power:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HXTYFkfP ... re=related

Jets can be quicker of course, but for really fast RC you want no engine at all:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WaQB16ZaNI4

I know what I've always meant to ask someone who knew - is this fake?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q6F-0rIpLJE

No, I've watched people fly helicopters like that. Even though I can fly RC helicopters and do basic loops and rolls I still can't really begin to comprehend how anyone can do that. Basically though they learn on sims as kids and then they can just do that sort of thing.

Am eBaying for some additional Tamiya RC cars (want to get one each for the boys for in a year or two, and me and the father in law can play with them in the meantime) - some fairly dirt cheap things going on there, with full RC gear and hardly used.

Now that's just ridiculously talented.

Why did I read this...

We should totally have a Beex RC day somewhere! Then Grim... can ram you from behind all day long.

Not to say that people can't do things like that, but I have now decided that video is fake.
If it isn't, that cameraman has the fastest reactions in the world.

It's not fake. Just search for 3d rc heli and you'll see loads of similar. They might have used a cropping tool which centers moving objects on the video.

More recent one here:

Just finished building a new model and flew it this morning:


It's a super-light/efficient (275g) F3K class discus-launch glider. It's a pure glider so no motive power. It's launched it by holding that blade on the wing tip and throwing it into the air like a discus, then the game is to try and stay airborne as long as possible by finding lift from big thermals or smaller "bubbles" nearer to the ground.

Indoor Hand Glider.

I really hope you meant "javelin".

No, you spin around like so:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rZdFuOguFrc

That's what you are.

I went up to the beach at lunchtime with this old glider (very, very low-tech this one, made out of nothing much except some foam and some packing tape, but really tough) and one of the excellent little key fob shape cameras you can get from ebay now:



It really does cause some bafflement amongst the passers by, especially if it's fairly high up. My favourite was two blokes stood there debating whether or not it must be carrying a person.

I want to try and get some close up air to air footage of the gulls (they use the same lift from the wall to travel around for free) who are usually pretty happy to fly alongside, but there were none around today.

Bloody hell mate, that's brilliant!
I had dreams of doing this sort of thing when I was a kid, I tried with a servo-operated 110 film camera sticking out of the side of my balsa-wood glider.. one shot, then you had to land it and wind the film on

Yeah I did that too, then a motor driven disc camera.

The latest thing is to have a camera mounted on a gimbal thing which has a downlink to a pair of video goggles which have head tracking which in turn drives the camera mount. So you fly around looking out of the plane. I guess it might be fun but the appeal of RC to me is that you can fly something and get to see it fly all at the same time, sort of your own little airshow. Also you should never fly what you can't afford to write off, hence my low-tech approach

Some questions for anyone with an R/C helicopter - over 10 years ago I had my own Baron 30. Had it for a few months and I was becoming fairly good at flying it - unfortunately a manjor prang all but obliterated it and I gave up the hobby as it was becoming too expensive.

I continued my flying on the CSM simulator on my PC then moved up to Realflight Deluxe - I got pretty good on that but after a few years gave that up too.

I'm now pondering trying again with an R/C heli - this time I have a lot more land to fly on but the location is quite exposed to wind (ie perfectly calm days are rare, there's usually at least a slight breeze blowing) so I was thinking that perhaps a 60 size heli would be better (ie more stable in a stiff breeze).

I'd go electric this time too, but am unsure what to buy. I don't want anything cheap and nasty, yet don't need top of the range either. Something with reasonably priced parts which are easy to purchase in the UK is essential.

Any thoughts please?

I'd probably get a T-Rex 450 type of thing. I also first learnt years ago with a .30 size, a Hirobo Shuttle and while these "400 size" electric ones are a fair bit smaller they don't really seem harder to fly and will happily cope with 10-15mph winds. Of course bigger is always easier as with any type of RC aircraft but the fact that they are smaller means they're a lot cheaper to crash which does help with learning.

The good news though is that everything is so cheap compared with a few years back. You can buy a perfectly ok heli kit from HK such as this:

http://www.hobbyking.com/hobbycity/stor ... Rex_Compat.)

And fit it out with some decent gear (assuming you have a TX) for probably less than the cost of your Baron 30 kit only.

That one above is a clone of a T-Rex to the extent that the parts are interchangeable but at that price you could buy two and have a complete set of spares. It would be cheaper than a "crash kit" for a genuine T-Rex.

However, if you're put off by the faff of researching and getting all the different bits together then for a bit more money there's this which you can take out of the box and fly the same afternoon:

http://www.f1hobbies.com/shop.php?id=756&level=

Again it's a very similar model, great model for learning on but with decent aerobatic capability. If (when) you crash it spares are readily available. It also includes everything you need to get flying including a 2.4GHz set of radio gear. It provides a much better link than the 35MHz stuff, especially for electric models where on board interference could often cause glitches.

The gear included there will be fine for flying pretty much most stuff until you start getting into anything more advanced but it depends what you want to do really. It's a decent make though and isn't junk. I always used Futaba but now everything I have is on 2.4GHz Spektrum (it's slightly different to 35MHz because the 2.4GHz protocols are all proprietary so you're locked in to buying receivers from the same firm as whichever TX you have, although there are some clone RXs for Spektrum).

Those are some ideas but there's just so much choice out there.

This is an excellent resource for learning how to set up an electric heli:

http://www.helifreak.com/showthread.php?t=11373

And if you want something to practice on indoors that's more fun than a simulator then these are excellent little helis:

http://www.f1hobbies.com/shop.php?id=1944&level=

In fact I probably fly that more than any of my bigger machines.

That's fantastic! I assume that the controller I think I saw operated the flaps on the back. Awesome pictures from it! Do more!

Thanks, Mali. Yes, the radio gear controls those two flaps (or elevons to give them their proper name, as they perform the function of elevators and ailerons) at the back so they move together for pitch control and opposite to each other for roll. It's probably just about the simplest type of RC plane there is but also the strongest and the best fun, even better with a couple of them racing or simply trying to knock each other out of the sky.

Glad you posted that actually - I've been meaning to ask if any of the indoor RC helicopters were any good. Probably a bit pricey for something I'd get bored of sharpish though. Don't suppose you've got a link to the type of camera you used in your glider film?

It's one of these:

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Spy-Camera-Key-Fo ... 4273wt_754

The build quality isn't great but I think they're basically cobbled together using the floor sweepings from mobile phone factories or something. Good fun though, they're so small you can stick them to pretty much anything.

These are meant to be ok. Not as good as that other one but a quarter of the price:

http://www.stevewebb.co.uk/index.php?pi ... &area=HELI

Cheers for that - just bought one on Ebay for £30.98 including delivery. At least if I get bored of it, it won't have cost me too much.

markg - that's some extremely helpful advice re the helis, I've now got some points of reference and some reading to do.

Excellent, thanks.

As it was a remarkably still weekend, wind-wise, I took the Piper Cub out for a spin, and was pleasantly surprised that I haven't forgotten how to fly the thing, despite it being the best part of 9 months since the last trip out with it.

I may have to buy one of those indoor helis for the inbetween times. That or a tiny teeny indoor RC plane, like that one Mark posted way back in the thread.

Mark - what sort of flight time do you get from the E-flite Blade 400 ?

Can the batteries be easily swapped out, perhaps in a matter of seconds?

I don't actually have a Blade 400, I have one of these:

https://www.modelshopleeds.co.uk/catalo ... ts_id=1890

But it's pretty much the same thing. I get around eight to ten minutes I think and yeah the batteries are pretty quick to swap, just pop the canopy off and put a new one in.

I'd say the only drawback with these small helis is that they seem to get even smaller even more quickly than the bigger ones so you do need to be on top of it all the time. Just get plenty more sim practice and you should be ok, though.

Those planes need a lot of room, Chris. To be honest I've hardly flown mine, the little helis are brilliant fun indoors as you can fly them in pretty much any space, although outside on a flat calm day the mSR is also quite capable of going pretty quick.

I was hoping I'd get away with playing with an indoor plane in the garden... I've seen people have indoor slowflyers in sports halls, but they're quite big spaces, I guess.

A proper 4 channel heli, whatever the size, would be a bit beyond my abilities, tbh.

Here you go Kissy.

You'd be ok with a slowflyer on a calm day, was the one I posted the Sukhoi, though? They're not slowflyers in any way, so they need a bit more room.

Those tiny Blade mSR helis are a lot more stable than the bigger ones, take your hands off the TX and they'll just sit there, same with the co-axial type ones. Way easier to fly than any plane. They're also so light than when you crash them nothing usually breaks, they just bounce.

Ta, sounds like a good running time (I used to get similar on my non-electric Baron 30).

Is there likely to be any kind of in-flight indicator to tell the operator when the battery level is getting low - some kind of indicator on the TX for example?

No, as soon as you notice that you are needing more throttle to hover then that's the time to land. Time this and then you can set a countdown timer on your TX which will beep when it runs out. If you were to just keep flying then eventually the ESC will hit it's low voltage cutoff and cut power to the motor leaving only the radio gear with power, this is usually ok for a plane but not so great for a heli unless you are well practiced at autorotations.

In any case it's better to err on the side of caution with LiPo batteries and not get anywhere near this state as they don't enjoy being run down to a very low voltage. If you want more batteries don't buy the eFlight ones, you can get really good batteries from the Hobby King site I linked to earlier for not much money at all. For the Blade 400 you'll probably want 3S1P 2200mAh, this'll also give a bit more run time than the included 1800mAh.

Oh also battery run times vary quite a bit depending on what you're doing so when you're learning and doing nothing but hovering it uses quite a lot of power. Not sure where you got up to with your learning last time but once you transition into forward flight then you can back off the throttle/collective quite considerably or else you'll either start gaining lots of height or you'll have to pitch it so far forwards that it'll start going very fast.

Thanks very much.

I'm fine with forward flight, head-on flight too.

Blimey.. it arrived today. Shame I don't have any batteries.

Just had a quick go with it and it's a natty little thing. A bugger to control (I imagine most are?) but it would help if I could remember the left stick was the throttle and not for directional control. Cheers again for the recommendation... should keep me amused for a while.